the eternal dances of the sky,
And in the abyss of brightness dares to span
The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high,
In God's magnificent works his will shall scan;
And love and peace shall make their paradise with man."
*Bryant

Conclusion.

The matter of the preceding thoughts may be thus summed up.

A progressive movement has been going on towards the rule, that,
self-love directed towards the material, the sensible, the showy, the
distinguishing, is so the ruling motive of human conduct, as to
constitute it the first requisite in adjusting the social relations,
that private interests, and class interests may not flourish best,
short of the best attainable flourish of the whole. When this point
shall be so thoroughly understood, that it shall be taken for no
reproach of any class of men to regard them practically as subject to
the common influences which control human conduct; we may expect an
effective move, for giving to the lawyer and to the physician a
relation to society, analogous to that sustained by the pastor among
Protestants; instead of leaving their professions to find their best
flourish, at about the vigor of intellectual and moral life, which just
now we live.

But this idea loses its importance as another comes into appreciation,
--namely, that the conflicts of self-love with self-love, suppose
mistaken estimates of happiness to be uppermost; and, just in
proportion as men rightly estimate life, and truly love themselves,
they appreciate those strong, numberless, delicate, indissoluble ties,
which bind the members of the social body to suffer, or to rejoice
together.

And this idea again lessens in importance, as yet a third gains the
ascendancy--the living conviction, that time is but the portal to
eternity; the soul meanwhile tasting "the powers of the world to come;"
and knowing the persuasiveness of that strongest call to mutual
endearment, "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."

And now the consideration of these three points is commended especially
to the attention of those, who, in the execution of their office and
ministry, have weekly access to the mind of the people. We mourn the
waning influence of the American pulpit. Where the power thence
emanating in the stirring days of trial to men's souls,--when its
ministers stood on that commanding point, where they caught the first
beams of rising day, and